


An Unimagined Life

by esteoflorien



Series: Follower Fic Fest: February 2015 (Angst) [3]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 16:14:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3417209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esteoflorien/pseuds/esteoflorien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vastra could not possibly have imagined this life when her people descended into the earth - not these humans, so far removed from their ancestors; not these unfamiliar cities, beautiful in their own way; and certainly not this little human woman, curled beside her, lost in sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Unimagined Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VictorianLesbian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VictorianLesbian/gifts).



> Thanks to victorianlesbian for the prompt: Jenny/Vastra, “wash away the blood from my hands with your unblemished ones.” Hope you enjoy it!

Vastra could not possibly have imagined this life when her people descended into the earth - not these humans, so far removed from their ancestors; not these unfamiliar cities, beautiful in their own way; and certainly not this little human woman, curled beside her, lost in sleep. She reaches for her, as she so often does, to coax Jenny into curling against her, so she can drift off to the steady beat of her heart and the even flow of her breath.

To her surprise, she finds Jenny’s foot, and gives it a squeeze. “Are you well?” she asks, pushing herself upright.

“Just fine,” Jenny says, but there is a tightness and tension to her voice that belies her reassurance.

“You’re crying,” Vastra breathes. It is the first time - apart from the very first moment they met, and at that, Jenny was already in tears, so it hardly counts - that she has seen her lover cry.

“I can’t believe I did that.” She is referring, of course, to the man she rather handily dispatched into the Thames while Vastra interviewed his associate. She’d been rather proud of Jenny; it had been their first investigation in which she hadn’t worried about her safety.

“Oh darling.” She’s wondered when this would happen, and pulls Jenny into her arms. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re treating me like nothing’s different,” Jenny continues.

“That’s because nothing is different, my love.”

“But I’m different now,” Jenny says. “I’m different now, different than I was this morning.”

“You are no different to me,” Vastra insists. “And no different from me, or anyone else.”

“It was wrong,” Jenny says, dully. “I should have - “

“You did so well though, my love! You kept yourself safe.”

She supposes much of this is her fault. She’s corrupted Jenny, after all; she’s brought her into this life of crime-fighting, but fighting nevertheless. She’s brought her to dark alleyways, sent her out as bait to entice the evil men Scotland Yard has asked them to apprehend. She’s taught Jenny to defend herself because she has placed her in a dangerous situation, and now, here she is, at a loss, now that Jenny requires comfort. She appreciates the irony of her situation.

She leans back against the headboard, pulling Jenny with her. “I think about the men in the underground often, you know.” She can’t even bring herself to say the words. “I wonder who they were, where they would go after they finished their work, who was waiting at home for them. Who was home when Scotland Yard came to call, giving them the news.”

Jenny intertwines their hands. “But you’d been asleep,” she insists. “Asleep for hundreds of thousands of years. You awoke and you were threatened and scared and hungry. And that doesn’t make it right, ma’am, and it doesn’t make it less wrong, but it does make it more understandable.”

“No, my dear,” Vastra says, quietly. “I was not scared, and I was not threatened. I will admit to being hungry. The fact remains that I chose to do what I did, that day, and I knew I was wrong.”

“But you deny that what is natural for you, every single day,” Jenny protests.

“Perhaps,” Vastra concedes. “But that doesn’t make it any less wrong when I fail. Or any easier when I am working, for that matter.” Vastra doesn’t even try to soften her words with a smile, because in the darkness she knows that Jenny can’t see the finer details of her face.

“So what do you do?” Jenny breathes.

“I do my best,” Vastra says. “That means I assist where I am needed, and I give you what is necessary for you to protect yourself. That’s the difference, after all. Those men posed no threat to me. The men tonight threatened you. You made a decision that had an unfortunate consequence, but otherwise, you would have been harmed, or worse.These are, I’m sorry to say, the choices we must make in our line of work.”

“Can’t we do something different?” Jenny asks, petulantly. Vastra finds it almost endearing.

“Think about what would have happened if we had not gone to the alley tonight, Jenny. This is how I can be most useful.” She laughs  bitterly and looks at the scales on her hand. It is only recently - only since Jenny - that she has caught herself staring at them and wishing them away. The truth is that there is much that would be different about their lives if she were not as she is. She wonders if Jenny knows it too - if she has thought about what they might do if she looked as human as she sometimes felt. They would go to the seaside, for one thing; they would sit in the sunlight and have tea and cakes watching the waves. She remembers the ocean well. She would like to see it in daylight, one day, but hers is a life of the darkness now, of clouds and shadows and lace veils hung heavy like curtains from her hats.

To her surprise, Jenny slips her hand over Vastra’s, twining their fingers tightly together. “Then we’ll do it together,” she says, resolutely. “And you’ll have me at the end of it.”

There is warmth in her voice and her words. “And you’ll have me.”

Jenny smiles. “Good, that.”


End file.
